CEBU CITY, Cebu (PIA) – The National Task Force on the West Philippine Sea (NTF-WPS) has warned against the misinformation being spread by pro-Chinese trolls on social media to downplay Chinese aggression in the West Philippine Sea.
Commodore Jay Tarriela, spokesperson of the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG), said the NTF-WPS is taking on a transparency strategy to combat the fake news propagated online to sow confusion among Filipinos on the West Philippine Sea issue.
“Our strategy on the West Philippine Sea is more on transparency for the Filipino people to know what is happening in the West Philippine Sea,” said Tarriela in a press conference held in Lapu-Lapu City recently.
Tarriela said the leading narrative being spread online is that the Philippine government is escalating the tension and this will lead to war.
“First (misinformation) is that if we keep on exposing the aggressive actions of China, things will lead to war. This is the number one fake news that pro-China trolls are spreading on social media, that we are the ones escalating the tension,” he said.
Tarriela said the Philippine government is not provoking China as the resupply operation conducted by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in the area is a legitimate operation.
“We are not escalating the tension, we are not provoking anybody. We are not provoking the People’s Republic of China everytime we do the resupply operation. It is wrong to think it's the Philippine government that is the reason why things are escalating in the West Philippine Sea. What we are doing in the Ayungin Shoal is a routine and legitimate operation of the AFP supported by the PCG,” he explained.
The PCG spokesperson also debunked claims that China has become aggressive in the West Philippine Sea due to the Philippines’ “deepening” security engagement with the United States.
“Even before President Marcos has started engaging the US for military exercises, we have already been experiencing this kind of tension from the People’s Republic of China.”
Tarriela also cited incidents during the previous administration when Filipino fishermen had been harassed while supply operations encountered difficulties from the Chinese.
“You can go back as early as 1995, wherein they had already occupied Mischief Reef, three years after the US bases left the country. So there is a disconnect with this argument. It is not true that the US is the main reason why tension in the WPS is increasing,” he stressed.
Tarriela added that when it comes to the West Philippine Sea, the Chinese “have been really aggressive, provocative, a bully, and disregarding international laws.”
Lastly, Tarriela pointed out the narrative that the Philippines’ actions on the West Philippine Sea are dictated by the US.
“That’s not true. This has already been responded to by the President himself, saying that we have our own agency, we can think of our own as a sovereign state, we don't need to be dictated by anybody, particularly by external power,” he said.
He explained that the Philippine government’s actions are driven by national interest to protect the country’s maritime rights and not dictated by the Americans.
“The mere fact that we are doing the legitimate operations in the West Philippine SEa, these are things that are not dictated by the US. We did that because we believe and we assert our position in the West Philippine Sea, that we have sovereign rights over Ayungin Shoal,” said Tarriela.
Tarriela was in Lapu-Lapu City for the Visayas leg of the West Philippine Sea - Philippine Information Agency (PIA) strategic communication workshop series.
Early this year, the NTF-WPS tapped the PIA to take the lead in communicating accurate information about the issues involving the West Philippine Sea at the grassroots level. (HFG/PIA7)
